This year's annual celebration will be held on on Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at the Venture Cafe in the Cambridge Innovation Center from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

The CDSC Bash proves to be a delighful-- and meaningful --way to celebrate the accomplishments of the mediation community. This event continues to serve as our signature fundraising event of the year; the funds we raise support the alternative and affordable dispute resolution services we provide in the courts, the schools and the community.

Member Helen Shurven will speak at the Community Dispute Settlement Center, Inc. on her work at the National Native Title Tribunal in Australia.

The Tribunal deals with complex multi-party disputes between the rights and interests of Indigenous people, miners and explorers, the Government, and other interested parties.

The Tribunal functions under the Native Title Act 1993 (Commonwealth), and provides mediation services to parties to assist them resolve their disputes. The Tribunal also arbitrates disputes, making decisions which are binding on all parties and which can be appealed to the Federal Court.

How to Intervene in a Conflict Situation
Techniques to reduce the impact of aggressive social behavior

Presented by Rona Fischman

Tuesday, April 25, 20172:00pm-6:00pm

All Bystander Intervention training includes how to intervene in public aggression situations. Given your physical type and presentation, gender, race, social status, geographic location, there are better and worse ways to intervene in a conflict situation. Learn how to identify a circumstance that requires intervention. Learn your go-to interventions. Learn to choose the most effective tactic from your bag of tricks. Practice this with the group.

What Rona Fischman’s program adds is how to peacefully confront racism, sexism, LGBTQ-phobia, Islamophobia, or anti-Semitism with people that you know. It has been proven that people rarely change their minds based on learning from a stranger; it is people they know and respect who influence them.

This class teaches techniques for setting respectful limits with someone you work with, someone in your family, or someone you see regularly in your neighborhood. How you respectfully discuss ideas with people you disagree with varies based on who you are. We look at the strengths and pitfalls of your verbal style. We’ll practice ways to maintain your integrity while avoiding an argument with someone you disagree with. This is easier said than done, but by the end of the program, you’ll have some go-to techniques to increase your chances of successful dialogue. The course also reviews other actions, such as witnessing and video-making, in a general way. There is a counseling aspect to the program, aimed at preparing each participant to contribute to social justice in a way that suits their strengths and abilities

Come to this engaging seminar with Jeanne Cleary in which we will focus on how we as mediators use ourselves as one of the primary tools in the mediator’s toolbox. In this session, Jeanne will help us explore the dimensions of the use of Self at the table; how to use our authenticity; what do we mean by “presence” and what does this matter in conflict resolution? What are the personal qualities and relational capacities that make us most effective at helping people in conflict?

Jeanne will also share some of her strategies for developing and growing our internal and interpersonal capacities, and the qualities of being that invite and inspire the best in others.

Please bring examples from your mediation experiences of particular challenging situations and we will ground this seminar work in actual practice challenges through discussion and demonstration.

Come and consider the impact of identity on conflict and conflict management through the eyes of a mediator.

Recognizing and appreciating the many identities at the mediation table --the parties, your co-mediator as well as your own-- can be key to a successful mediation. We all carry multiple obvious and hidden identities with us as we walk through life.

Develop your sensitivity to the characteristics of varied personalities as they exist and have impact on the mediation process.

District Wide Conflict Mediator for Cambridge Public Schools since 2006 and 10 years as core faculty for the Institute for Peaceable Schools at Lesley University, focused on Conflict Management, Restorative Justice practice and Cultural Proficiency training.

Chandra is a life long resident of the City of Cambridge as well as an alumni of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, specializing in Risk Prevention and Counseling.
She has worked as a Mediation trainer for CDSC for 8 years and

provides consultation and training to public and private agencies across the state of Massachusetts.

Update/refresher on Alimony:
Focus will be on the scope of the new issues which couples need to address, such as, duration, cohabitation, types of alimony, and retirement, related to the Alimony Reform Act of 2011.
Hypotheticals will be reviewed.

RACHEL B. GOLDMAN is a partner at Grindle Robinson LLP in Wellesley where she specializes in collaborative family law, mediation, conciliation, and settlement negotiation.

Rachel is listed in the book "Best Lawyers in America" and Boston Magazine's "Top Women Attorneys in Massachusetts" and has been named a Super Lawyer in the areas of Family Law and Family Law Mediation.

Rachel teaches introductory and advanced mediation courses with the Community Dispute Settlement Center and Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education and frequently presents to professional groups, law students, college students, and the public about divorce law, collaborative practice and mediation.

MICHAEL L. LESHIN is a partner at Ginsburg & Leshin, LLP in Wellesley. He focuses his practice on family law and mediation.

He is a past president of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and has been certified as a divorce mediator by MCFM. He serves on the Board of Directors of CDSC. In 2013 he received MCFM's John Adams Fiske Award for Excellence in Mediation. He is the author of the "Massachusetts Family Law Sourcebook," published annually by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc. He is listed in "The Best Lawyers in America," (Family Law, 2006 - 2016 and Family Law Mediation 2007 - 2016).

He has lectured on tax, mediation and family law issues for MCLE, MCFM, Mediation Works, Inc. and CDSC.

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